Strategies and Models for Data Collection Development

Issues around managing and providing access to data are receiving a lot of attention from academic libraries and information technology departments. This session will discuss how academic libraries handle data collection development and acquisitions. Panelists will share institutional case studies to illustrate various experiences and practices in the development of data collections. Issues include navigating diverse format types and licensing issues, funding and budgets, selection responsibility, and collection development policy statements. Innovative models, such as contests to identify data sets for acquisition will be shared. The treatment of small individual data sets, to large subscription databases, to freely available online resources will all be considered. This session will provide an opportunity for participants to engage in open discussion of a key aspect of their responsibility to ensure access to data resources for their communities.